Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.
—Charles de Gaulle, 1963Quotes
Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.
—Alexander Hamilton, 1787The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.
—Che Guevara, 1968Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.
—John Wilkes Booth, 1865The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
—Dean Acheson, 1970The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.
—LaoziPolitics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.
—Anthony Trollope, 1862The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1908Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
—Mao Zedong, 1938The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.
—Hannah Arendt, 1958